Sunday, April 8, 2007

Happy Easter!

As the pic says Happy Easter! This image is from one of my favorite roleplaying games, Gamma World 1st edition (1978). It’s a post-apocalyptic place with all kinds of crazy mutants with bizarre superpowers. This science-fantasy setting was one of those things that hooked me into gamming for life and this fantastic image of gun-toting rabbits is one of the reasons. Because of this rabbit-men picture, I always thought Gamma World would make a great comic book. I wonder what the furry fans think about this?

These creatures are called Hoops. They walk erect, are highly intelligent, seek ancient technology and are omnivores. Hoops have bizarre powers like: telepathy, the ability to merge their minds into one, and the power to transmute metal into rubber. Pretty weird huh? Later editions of Gamma World described them as having a militaristic society but they’ve always been a little nutty regardless. I like to think of them as a cross between Bugs Bunny and Watership Down. Gives a whole new meaning to hunting for eggs doesn’t it?

Oh, MAN does that bring back memories! Back in my high school days I participated in a Gamma World campaign headed up by someone who was (and still is) basically a good guy, but was probably the most inept GM I've ever worked with. He was a very politically-motivated individual even back then and didn't like the idea of us starting out the way the game recommends, i.e. without technology. Instead, he said our characters were from an American survivalist camp and started us out fully armed and armored on a quest to try to rebuild American civilization.

There was certainly some potential in that scenario, but the trouble was no matter where we went or what we did we always wound up fighting the same bad guy and his army of Hoops. We'd slaughter all the Hoops (again), mow down the villain with a hail of machine gun and energy weapon fire (again), hop in our bubble car, and travel hundreds of kilometers away...to find the same villain and his Hoops there waiting for us. (The GM's excuse: "He is both psychic and has regenerative powers.") Needless to say, I didn't stay with that campaign very long.

After that I tried my hand at GMing Gamma World myself. I started out with the characters at a more or less medieval level of technology, as the game recommends, but the GM of the former campaign was one of the players, and he wouldn't stop spouting off to all the other players what everything they saw was and how best to deal with it. It got boring fast and was quickly terminated. I never tried Gamma World again after that...though another member of the group started an Aftermath campaign (which I also didn't stay with very long).

LB What? You didn’t want to be a mutated dog with a tentacles coming out of your face and the power make force fields and teleport? You’re not a big fan of Planet of the Apes either are you? :D

Moody Yeah, part of the fun of GW was figuring out what the all the artifacts do and trying to recover lost knowledge. The old technologies in GW are like magic items in D&D, they should be earned. Sounds like you had the ultimate power gamer for a Game Master. Survivalist and Mad Max stuff really doesn’t work with the GM rules, but you knew that already. My campaign petered out but it was fun while it lasted. The fourth edition of the rules was pretty good too. The newest 6th edition, by Sword and Sorcery studios, totally sucks. The new designers screwed it up by throwing out everything that made the GW game fun and they added a terrible layer of new rules that don't work.

Selba Don’t worry about at all. That would be VERY geeky of you to know about gamma world especially since you’re from Indonesia.

dean Yeah overdroid showed them to me, but I’ve never played the game. Looks fun. Come to think of it, B&B sounds like a roleplaying game that ladybug would like.

I remember I rolled up a character for a game (using the original rules) and I ended up with time travel, which was statistically highly improbable and ridiculously powerful. Two people could roll up characters and one could be a god while the other was essentially a homeless person wielding a carrot.